Transmission lines or optical waveguides for carrying a beam of light as a means for communicating signals or data through a glass or polymer fiber are well known in the art. Optical fibers of glass are coated with layers of glass and polymers of various properties of hardness, softness, smoothness, flexibility, adherence to the fiber, and refractive index to mitigate the effects of surface imperfections of the fiber and stresses of bending and contact with other materials during manufacture, installation, and use. Similarly, plastic optical fibers are coated for equivalent reasons. Either glass or plastic fibers are said to be buffered against the environment and events which can result in signal loss by their effect on the fiber.
When optical fibers are manufactured into data or signal transmitting cables, the buffered fibers are sometimes provided with high-strength members, such as braided jackets, to provide strength to the cable so it may be unreeled, pulled, strung from supports, used as a tow cable, and otherwise handled physically during manufacture, installation, or use for its intended purpose of transmitting signals. One kind of useful strength member is a braided sheath of strong polymer fibers surrounding the optical fiber cable. The current method for terminating such a cable is by pulling out the optical fiber through openings in the weave of the braid to be terminated. The braid can then be looped around a termination pin and the free end of the braid attached to itself to form a loop in the braid to provide a high-strength termination of the cable. The problem remaining is that as the braid is placed under strain, the effect of pressure of the weave of the braid on the optical fiber is one of cutting into the protective layers of the optical fiber with resultant disastrous impact upon the quality of optical performance of the cable. The invention provides a solution to this problem by eliminating the shearing action of the braid on the optical fibers.